Just 1 Project aims to raise £500,000 for Five Charities in Five Months Using only Social Media

The Just 1 Project, launched on July 1, 2016 could change forever how we donate to charities and the way in which they fundraise. Created by well-known award-winning author, TED-X speaker and behaviourist, Jez Rose, the project aims to raise £500,000 in just five months, for five charities, using only social media, by asking people to donate just one pound and then to share the project with their social networks. The five charities who will benefit from The Just 1 Project have been chosen because they all provide significant social benefit and exist to improve life: Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity; BASICS Hertfordshire; Brain Tumour Research; Youth Sport Trust and Contented Dementia Trust.

Jez Rose was inspired to create The Just 1 Project by the film ‘Pay It Forward’ starring Kevin Spacey and Jon Bon Jovi, in which a social studies student’s plan to pay forward favours in order to help make the world a better place, results in an unprecedented wave of human kindness. Rose says: “I wanted to realize the same ambition, and wondered if we could garner the strength of social media to raise big funds for charity.

“On average, we each spend more than an hour on social media every day and by donating just one pound, and then sharing the project with our networks, I really believe that we can all be a part of something truly extraordinary,” he continues.

£500,000 in five months sounds like a huge task. In many ways it is, especially considering traditional fundraising methods. However, Jez has 1,358 friends on Facebook; 1,997 connections on Linkedin; and 1,785 followers on Twitter. If each of those connections donated one pound, and then shared it with their friends, the £500,000 total would easily be reached.

“And that is just my networks,” says Jez. “Using the power of compounding, which is basically what this is all about, imagine the fund-raising potential if each of my connections donates and shares with each of their networks, who donate and share with each of their networks, and so on. Of course I am aware that not everyone will donate and some will overlook the project and not even share it. But even if half the people I am connected to, donate and share, and then they donate and share, we should reach our £500,000 in five months.”

The Just 1 Project will also help charities solve their fundamental dilemmas: what does it take for people to donate and is there a better way to raise more? Using the principles of the Project, people could in fact donate less money but with just a little more effort in sharing it with their friends, help charities to raise more by making more people aware of their need.

“It could mean no more need for appeals to regularly donate money each month; or sponsored running, parachute jumping or tipping iced water over your head,” says Jez. “It’s all about using a network, which already exists, and changing slightly the way we use it, for the better.”